With a 60,000 backlog at the Crown Court and chronically overcrowded prisons, the criminal justice system is in a parlous state, Martin Rackstraw, partner, Russell-Cooke, writes in this week’s NLJ. Could a recent case make the situation worse?
Rackstraw considers the recent appeal case of R v Plaku & Ors, where the court considered the question of when the maximum one-third reduction should be applied to a sentence in the crown court.
He suggests the decision ‘will cause considerable difficulties for defence practitioners and judges, and should be of concern to anyone who cares about having an effective and proportionate system of sentencing’.
Read the article here to find out more.
